


to forever and beyond

by Whatabeautifulday23



Series: to forever and beyond [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Dark Betty Cooper, F/M, Hurt Jughead Jones, Riverdale, bughead - Freeform, right after the second to last episode of season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 03:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14662517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatabeautifulday23/pseuds/Whatabeautifulday23
Summary: Jughead's been badly hurt, and Betty's not about to let it slide.Set immediately after 2x21.





	to forever and beyond

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is a one shot set right after FP carries Jughead out of the woods, after he was beaten by Penny and the Ghoulies. There will be more writing for this universe later, in a separate work, though it'll all be in the same series.

**Set immediately after 2x21.**

            They won’t let her seem him.

            Betty is damaged nerves and frayed edges. She’s panic and despair. This night, this week…it’s all been too much. And now the love of her life is battling to survive in a room just down the hall, and the nurse won’t let her in.

“Family only. And not even family right now.” She says quite firmly, eyes flicking over Betty’s exhausted and blood-stained form. Betty was here only a few hours ago, to see her father.

Her father. Hal Cooper. God, she can’t. She can’t think about him.

FP is pacing the hallway, running his fingers through his hair, all energy and no finesse. His son is in there – Jughead Jones, the boy with the beanie, the boy who thinks he’s too much and yet not enough, is quite possibly dying. He was beaten so badly…

Betty hiccups, and Veronica jumps next to her. The dark-haired beauty had been falling asleep, but now she shifts impatiently and presses her hand to Betty’s knee. Betty looks at her, eyes glistening, and Veronica squeezes. “He’ll be okay, B,” she whispers ever so softly, as if saying it any louder will dare the gods.

“But he won’t.” Betty sniffles, and it’s true – no matter what, Jughead will always remember what he had endured. He might even be crippled by it. There had been so many broken bones…he had hung there in FP’s arms so limply…she had taken off his Serpent tattoo.

A white-hot needle of rage singes through her. Penny Peabody…Betty is going to kill her.

Toni is bouncing her knee too loudly on the other side of Veronica, who looks like this is all suddenly too much. Betty doesn’t know that horrors V has seen tonight, but she knows that her evening was anything but quiet. Something must have happened.

But she can’t find it within herself to ask, and Veronica doesn’t attempt to share.

A doctor strides down the hall and pulls FP aside, his hand on the older man’s shoulder, murmuring in a voice too soft for Betty to make out. FP nods his head quickly, and glances back at them. He throws a wave their way, and then starts down the hallway with the doctor. Towards Jug’s room.

“Wait.”

Betty’s standing, heart pounding in her chest. FP pauses, turning to look at her. She wonders, then, if he can sense what she’s planning. If he can see the fire burning behind her eyes. He must, because she can see it reflect in his own eyes and make a home. There will be hell to pay.

Unless Betty beats him to it.

“Tell him…” Betty’s throat bobs, words suddenly difficult to push out. Someone lays a hand on her shoulder – Veronica or Toni, or perhaps even Cheryl, who’s been lurking around the hospital for the past half hour – and it helps her breathe. “Tell him not to go where I can’t follow.”

FP’s eyes soften just slightly, and Betty thinks she hears the nurse sigh dreamily. It’s ridiculous. Her words are not some sort of romantic saying; they’re born from desperation, from the fear of what life would be like without him. Jughead must live, because Betty isn’t sure she’ll be able to without him.

But FP nods, pivots, and disappears further into the hospital depths.

Betty turns and looks directly at Toni, only to discover that the other girl is already watching her. Cheryl is next to her, still cloaked in red, and Veronica stands next to her. She was the one who touched Betty. “V…go home. Go find Archie.” She whispers, eyes breaking from the only other Serpent present.

Veronica presses her lips together. “B…what are you going to do?” She’s tense, arms crossed over her chest, and Betty wonders where Archie is. He came to the hospital, but he’s gone now. Now that she thinks of it, Veronica came separately.

Betty flicks her eyes up to meet Veronica’s. “You don’t want to know.”

And it’s true. Veronica really doesn’t. So she looks away, nods, and sits back down primly in her seat.

Betty marches down the hall and knows without looking that Toni and Cheryl have fallen in behind her. There’s too much to lose. Too much.

“Betty?”

Ah. There he is.

Betty numbly looks at Archie, from where he’s emerged from the bathroom, red-faced with puffy eyes. He’s been crying. She hasn’t. Maybe at first, when FP first carried Jughead’s prone form out of the woods…but not since. She’s full of vengeance and rage now, but perhaps when the deed is done, she’ll collapse.

Archie knows immediately that she’s up to something. There was too much purpose in her stride, too much bloodlust in her gaze. But Betty doesn’t have time for him and his questions – later, maybe, she’ll be thankful that he’s here, but right now he’s an obstacle. “Go sit with Veronica, Archie,” she commands, and walks on.

~

The Ghoulies are celebrating. Betty can hear their cheers reverberating off of the walls and echoing all the way outside. They’re crouched outside of The Whyte Worm – where the rival gang decided to settle down for the night. The Serpents are scattered, preparing for a fight that won’t happen, or at the hospital mourning Fangs. Perhaps seething over Jughead’s sacrifice.

Betty’s breath stutters in her chest, and she almost retches in the dirt. She’s shaking. How could Jughead _do_ that, call her and tell her he loved her before essentially getting himself killed?

“Cousin.” Cheryl’s sharp voice breaks through her thoughts, and Betty focuses on it like it’s a lifeline. “The plan.”

Right. It’s late; nearly two am. Betty slowly, methodically lifts herself up from her knees and peers through a window into the bar.

Ghoulies are drinking and cheering, clapping each other on the back – darker things are occurring in the shadows, things Betty chooses not to latch on to. Instead, she sweeps her gaze through everything she can see, and _there_. Penny Peabody is sitting alone in the back corner, near the stage where she had performed her Serpent Dance. She’s nursing a beer, staring darkly at something or nothing. Betty watches, her breath baited. A Ghoulie approaches, and Penny smiles, murmurs something, but that’s it. She’s not moving.

At the sight of her, Betty’s boiling. Not just her blood, but her organs and skin too. She’s fire come to life. And she’s going to burn.

“She’s in the back right corner,” Betty breathes out as she lowers herself back to the ground, looking back at Cheryl and Toni. Both are gazing back, eyes laced with steel. “That’s where we’re going to set the fire. Come on.” Without another word, Betty grabs one of the gas cans they had borrowed from Toni’s grandfather, and scurries towards the back of the Whyte Worm.

Cheryl and Toni follow silently, and the trio gets to work. They douse the building in gas, and when its sufficiently covered, they work on the bikes too. Betty cuts gas lines, letting them leak, and trails her own gas to the bikes and back to the building. Something in her chest aches – this was Jughead’s place, too. But now it has been defiled, and it must be burned to ash. Along with Penny and her terrors.

When they’re done, all three are panting, and smell faintly of kerosene. Toni pulls out a match, twirling it in her fingers before looking up at Betty. She’s been quiet, too shocked to have much to say. But she wants this as much as Betty does; it’s written in her skin, in the way she holds herself.

Cheryl murmurs, looking only at Betty, “Are you sure?” She knows that this will change everything. Someone will find out that this fire was started purposefully, and that will lead to questions. But Cheryl only asks once. She’s willing. Betty dips her chin once to show that she is.

Toni lights the match, and finally speaks. “For Jughead.” Without hesitating, she lets the blazing match fall onto the streak of gas that they had led to where they stood.

It’s almost pretty how quickly the gas catches. Flames lick along it, greedy for more, shining red and blue and everything in between. The building, soaked as it is, catches first. Betty watches as the wood starts to crumble, listens as people inside start to scream.

“Betty, we have to go,” Toni urges, hand clasping Betty’s elbow. But she resists, wanting to hear one particular scream – craving it, actually, anxious to hear it. “Betty, _let’s go!_ ”

The Whyte Worm is ablaze, and people are screaming and possibly dying, and some of them are rushing out of the bar. One of them sees them and shouts, but right at that moment, an explosion sounds, throwing Betty off of her feet. Heat blooms in her face, everywhere. It feels like _she’s_ on fire, but then she’s up and running, Cheryl on her right and Toni on her left.

They run and run and run, until finally Toni lags, wheezing. They’ve put enough distance between themselves and the bar. Betty leans over, hands on her knees, panting. She can see the fire in the distance.

It all comes crashing down on her right then. Jughead. The Whyte Worm. Her father. A life that will never, _ever_ be the same.

Staring at the distant burning ruins of the bar, Betty finally cries.

~

Two days later, and Jughead is still unconscious, but doing better. Some of his ribs are broken, as well as his left arm. The other is mutilated and will scar from where Penny slit his tattoo off.

Penny is dead. Along with a majority of the Ghoulies. When they tell her (Alice and some other adults, FP with suspicious eyes), Betty lets her mouth drop in shock, and she looks away, as if needing a moment. In her head, she smiles, as disgusting as it is. But in reality, she looks back at her mother and lets some of the darkness bleed into her eyes. “They got what was coming.” Betty says quite demurely, and then strokes her thumb across the back of Jughead’s hand.

FP comes and goes, sometimes hardly able to look at his son, sometimes looking too much. He’s a mess between Jug and the loss of the Whyte Worm. Betty feels the tiniest bit guilty, but not really.

Jughead made a sacrifice. The Serpents lost their headquarters. It’s almost fair.

Betty leans down and kisses Jug’s cheek. “Come back to me, Juggie,” she murmurs quietly, gazing down at him, watching his chest rise and fall. “I love you.”

She does love him. And he does come back to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
